Events in Palestine have moved so much faster than the Security Council that a tendency has become noticeable in Paris to talk as though there was nothing much useful that the...

I T is by no means clear why the British and American Govern- ments should have chosen this particular moment to announce their intention to hand back the Ruhr industries to...

It has been freely reported for some weeks that all that stands between the present Greek Government and downfall is the need to hold the line until the debate of the General...

That the second reading of the Steel Nationalisation Bill in the House of Commons next week will be carried by the Government's usual substantial majority is not in doubt,...

It used to be fashionable a year or two ago to point out that the British economy was based on coal. It is less fashionable now. But it is not less true and it is not less...

Before Sunday's elections the representation of General de Gaulle's French People's Rally in the Council of the Republic, the French Upper House, was nil. At present the Council...

The first reactions from the Indian Peninsula to the recent Commonwealth Conference are, as far as they go, encouraging. Mr. Nehru has told the Constituent Assembly in Delhi...

I HAVE always enjoyed watching the men who, after any great public ceremony, go around with spiked sticks spearing odd pieces of paper. There is a satisfaction in tidying up...

The civil defences of this country against war are at the present moment virtually non-existent ; even what survives from 1945 in the way of experience and equipment is bound to...

The interval between January I, 1948, when the General Council of the Trades Union Congress issued its first clear statement on the need for increased production, and the...

T HERE was a good deal in the Prime Minister's speech at Guildhall on Tuesday that deserves attention, notably his suggestive references to a Commonwealth which now includes...

Conference, claiming that in the conflict of Christianity with materialism the tide was turning, has raised some question even among optimists. Those who justify it do so, I...

by the strike at the London docks precipitated by the introduction of a new machine called a Stacatruc, designed to save man-power in the operation of stacking cargoes. So we...

fate of the famous avenue of limes in the Trinity Backs at Cambridge without recalling the well-known In Memoriam stanza : And last Up that long walk of limes I passed To see...

rate, whom I have ever heard, or heard of, possesses any comparable faculty. Miss Draper's capacity to take possession of a full-size stage—in this case the Haymarket's—and by...

enough— if not too far. When once a man has undergone the protracted and searching ordeal of the Nuremberg trial and achieved complete acquittal he might well be thought...

I AM not much impressed by the contention that the Democratic successes in America give - Labour here legitimate ground for counting on a safe victory at the next General...

and Country Planning about the village of Letcombe Bassett, in Berkshire, threatened with the evacuation of most.of its population because it is not large enough, successfully...

By D. W. BROGAN Washington, November 6th. N the spring of 1937 I came out to Washington. In November, I 1936, the Republicans had suffered their most disastrous defeat ; they...

By COLIN McDONALD T HE attitude of the Chinese towards their present troubles is summed up in the wry saying current in the North: " In the one hand we have a rotten pear, in...

By DR. J. GORDON COOK T HE world is better informed about scientific research today than it has ever been before. For this we owe a debt of gratitude to the atomic bomb, which...

By LORD MANCROFT A VISIT to Malaya is a chastening experience. It would appear, if every critic in that country is to be believed, that we have not only fallen into more traps...

By GEOFFREY GORER W HEN Mr. Truman was elected by a sizable majority to the Presidency of the United States, he incidentally performed a most useful service to American and...

By REGINALD GIBBON W HEN the Germans bombed the Temple they shattered the Temple Church, and utterly obliterated an organ famous as containing much of Father Smith's original...

By HAROLD NICOLSON T HAVE always felt that the jury system is one of the main j foundations of human liberty. It is with happiness and pride that I recall that June afternoon...

6 , Up In Central Park." (Odeon, Marble Arch)—" Larceny." (Odeon, Marble Arch.)—" River Lady." (New Gallery.) IN my review of An Act of Murder last week I applauded Miss...

THE THEATRE The Wild Duck. By Henrik Ibsen. (St. Martin's.) How satisfying it is to have a first-rate production of Ibsen once more available in London—to be able to re-enter...

what used to be called a play of ideas. A lot of them are good ideas, but it is not a very good play. U.N.U.T.O. stands for the United Nations Undeveloped Territories...

A COMPARATIVELY empty week gives me the opportunity to repair what was a serious omission from my last week's notes. Fortunately performances of Verdi's Simone Boccanegra, which...

As though to confound a reference I made a week or two ago to the classical nature of his theorems, Ben Nicholson has relented and returned to his most lyrical mode. There is...

Sm,—Lady Artemus-Jones makes an important point about Jones vJ Hutton, and it is often overlooked. Mr. (as he then was) Artemus Jones had been a contributor to the defendants'...

THE MIRACLE OF MR. TRUMAN Snt,—With every other correspondent in this country, I am still trying to discover how it is that Harry S. Truman has been able to return to...

Sta,- 7 -As a fellow Liberal I have much sympathy with what Mr. Clive Bell writes, and were the general election to take place this year I might think him not unrealistic ; but...

SIR, —May I approach your readers with an account of what the British Institute in Florence is doing, under great difficulties, to present an account of our language,...

SIR, —On Friday evening (November 5th) I read in The Spectator Geoffrey Faber's article A Critical Moment. On Saturday morning (November 6th) I read a leading article in The...

SIR, —Mr. Hudson's views on socialism are his own affair, but in his comments on my book, The Triple Challenge, in your columns last week, he makes a charge against me...

name of a well-known doggerel verse en the virtues of various woods for the winter fire. The large number of different versions would suggest that the rhymes are traditional and...

IN looking over the many volumes of the works of Richard Jefferies or/ the eve of his centenary (he was born at Coate Farm, Wiltshire, on November 6th, 1848), I found that I had...

SIR,—With reference to Dr. Allen's letter in The Spectator of August 6th, I am writing to say that last month I also received a letter from Sefior M., quite correctly addressed,...

countrymen by the date of the departure of the swallow's, though the division is not abrupt and the date varies a good deal. More obviously, I think, than any other species they...

SPECTATOR A very welcome CHRISTMAS GIFT at pre-war price. Why not take out subscriptions for your friends? A weekly reminder of your g oodwill throu g hout the year....

No manure spreads itself so kindly as the autumn leaves, and they fall at or about the dates when worms, those great tillers of the soil, are most active (as you may see on any...

Collective Security in Swiss Experience. By William E. Rappard (Allen and Unwin. 12s. 6d.) Or , the two volumes in which Professor Rappard's tireless ,industry and exhaustive...

Butler Approached SAMUEL BUTLER believed in Fame and in the continuance of a man's personality after death through his work and through the comments made on him by other men....

This Was My Choice. 10s. 6d.) By Igor Gouzenko. (Eyre and Spottiswoode• IT has always been difficult for Western observers to describe Russia in terms which are acceptable, or...

AUBREY BEARDSLEY died fifty years ago, at the age of twenty-six. He was already a legendary figure before his death, and the amazing success' with which his drawings epitomised...

GERMANY'S naval archives were, happily, saved from destruction, or from any attempt to keep them concealed, by their capture near Coburg in April, 1945. These archives date back...

IF Rex Whistler was an anachronism he was also a phenomenon. No other country could produce an artist of talent who owed nothing to the times in which he lived, and nothing to...

The Art of the Play. By Hermon Ould. (Pitman. 12s. 6d.) By concentrating on the principles that underlie play-conception and play-construction Mr. Ould has produced a book that...

The Essential Richard Jefferies; Selected, with an Introduction, by Malcolm Elwin. (Cape. 125. 6d.) IN writing of Jefferies and his work Mr. Elwin displays an acerbity of moral...

THE atomic bomb is to this age what the pox was to the Elizabethans. Our writers must need express, our obsession• with it. Even Mr. Neil Guru; writing fantasy against a...

The British Achievement in India. By H. G. Rawlinson. Hodge. 15s.) A FEW weeks ago two old friends from India sat in a London club discussing Hyderabad, Kashmir and the many...

[A Book Token for one guinea will be awarded to the sender of the first correct solution of this week's crossword to be opened after_noon on Tuesday week November 23rd....

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By CUSTOS Czri bankers and brokers—to say nothing of our economic planners in Whitehall—have been occupied this week with the task of assess- ing the implications_of Mr....